1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to storage systems. More specifically, the present invention relates to systems for storing a plurality of components which may contain data.
2. Description of Related Art
The cost of occupying computer room floor space has become very expensive to maintain in today's cost-conscious, computer-intensive business environment. Typical automated libraries often occupy large amounts of space and yet only contain a small portion of the installation's total data (the rest being stored in warehouses). Improvements in space efficiency are required to relieve the growing need to fit more powerful computer equipment into a constrained area.
Today's large automated libraries are arranged in a way that requires a significant amount of dedicated space just to service the library. This space is, at least, as large as a normal sized adult and cannot be used for storing tapes, drives, robots, etc. The larger the library, the more space is generally required to service the functions of the equipment.
Present automated library designs do not allow space consumption scalability, which would allow users to adjust the size of the library according to their needs. Present library designs also have large individual units of configuration and do not allow much flexibility in their physical layout, reducing the efficiency with which available space can be used.
Therefore, an automated library design that is space efficient and allows scalability and flexibility in its layout would be desirable.